SpectraGrow

This interview details SpectraGrow, a Precision LED Systems for Controlled Environment Agriculture company based in the United States. The interview is with Whit Allen, CEO of SpectraGrow.

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What is the origin story of SpectraGrow?

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The idea for SpectraGrow was born in late 2017 from the collaboration of three different companies in the horticulture, LED, and IoT industries, leveraging their combined resources, expertise, and access to world-class technologies to develop and build precision LED systems for controlled environment agriculture.

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From day one our focus has been on the performance of an entire farm, not just the rating of a single light fixture, leading us to create tailored solutions for commercial farms and customized solutions for growing system OEMs.

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Early in our company journey, a collaboration with Colorado State University (CSU) and Altius Farms in Denver, Colorado really solidified our mission and established our leadership in 3D photon uniformity on vertical growing structures. The challenge we were given was to develop a supplemental lighting solution for the Altius Farms rooftop greenhouse that uses vertical aeroponic towers – a lighting solution that would be out of the way of daily farm operations and yet still provide the right amount of photons to every plant up and down the vertical height of the towers.

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Altius Farms in the Daytime
Source: SpectraGrow

Altius Farms in the Evening
Source: SpectraGrow

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Teams from CSU setup several studies and compared a variety of before-and-after metrics. In conclusion, the use of top-lighting with the typical symmetrical radiation angle found in most horticultural LED fixtures can create extreme intensity variations on vertical growing systems - “hot spots” that increase the risk of tip-burn and bolting and “cold spots” that increase the risk of shade avoidance response. And these problems can be further exacerbated as plant canopies at the top get larger, faster, creating even more shading to plants at the bottom of the structure.

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CSU Study @ Altius Farms
Source: SpectraGrow

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SpectraGrow’s optimal top-lighting solution created an asymmetrical beam pattern with the right angle and diffusion for photosynthesis and penetration of the tower canopies, achieving significantly higher levels of photon uniformity up and down the vertical height of the towers, evidenced in the study with greater and more consistent yields of better quality products.

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SpectraGrow’s Optimal Asymmetric Beam Pattern for Tower Farms®
Source: SpectraGrow

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Through this experience, we recognized that our ideal customer is deeply committed to addressing huge issues with our planet – things like food security, food miles, water usage, and the impacts of pesticides and changing weather patterns – but runs into unforeseen challenges that can be solved with technology. We can’t stand that! So our “why” is to solve specific problems for the people who are doing good things in the world and are running into barriers that should not be holding them back…because we have the technology to overcome them.

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SpectraGrow CEO (Courtesy of NGS New Growing System)
Source: SpectraGrow

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We also recognized at this early stage that our expertise in optical engineering lends itself uniquely well to solving the specific lighting challenges of vertical growing systems that are delivering the highest crop yields per square foot of real estate. These come in all sorts of form factors and nomenclatures, such as Towers, Walls, Barrels, Racks, Vertical Gardens, Oscillating Vertical Gutters, Container Plant Panels, Pipes, Shelves, Vertical Channels, and A-Frames.

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Harvest Wall (Courtesy of Harvest Today)
Source: SpectraGrow

Oscillating Vertical Gutters (Courtesy of NGS New Growing System)
Source: SpectraGrow

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After a two-year incubation period, SpectraGrow Inc. was spun-out as its own independent corporation on Earth Day 2019.

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What are some of the biggest challenges facing SpectraGrow in the future?

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Our biggest challenge – and one that is out of our control – relates to customer project financing. Many of our customers are experiencing delays in funding their project, which extends our sales cycle. And because we add a lot of value upfront in the project design phase, our resource allocation is often quite out of sync with incoming revenue.

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Our next biggest challenge is supply chain. Some components we use in building our fixtures have really long lead times. We have been making some strategic buys, but every day things can change. Prices for components are still creeping up, as are prices for shipping.

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What is unique about SpectraGrow compared to competitors?

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The primary differentiator is our focus on 3D photon uniformity – making sure we get the right amount of photons on every plant in the farm, simulated and analyzed on both the horizontal and vertical planes. This is so important to us that we even trademarked our tagline of 3D Plant Lighting™. By solving 3D photon uniformity challenges in vertical AgTech, we uniquely increase farm profitability with less electricity usage, more harvests, greater yields, and better plant quality. While most competitors do provide a light plan for a commercial farm proposal, it is usually based on two dimensions, whereas ours are calculated and presented in 3D.

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SpectraGrow 3D Analysis (1)
Source: SpectraGrow

SpectraGrow 3D Analysis (2)
Source: SpectraGrow

SpectraGrow 3D Analysis (3)
Source: SpectraGrow

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A second differentiator is our willingness to pursue custom design opportunities with AgTech OEMs. While in some cases you may see our brand name on our products that we specifically designed for an OEM in a larger commercial farm, in other situations you may never realize that SpectraGrow designed and manufactured the LED lighting system that is integrated into the growing system itself (especially true in smaller consumer-focused home growing systems).

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OEM Pivot Irrigation System (Courtesy of Fienile Group)
Source: SpectraGrow

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Finally, you won’t find the SpectraGrow brand on Amazon, because we don’t sell a fixture – we build a tailored LED lighting solution to improve the profitability of a specific vertical farm. And we are willing to put in the effort upfront at the proposal stage to create a bespoke 3D Light Plan for our ideal customer, even though we won’t make any money unless the customer decides to go with our approach.

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What are some other relevant metrics of the company (client quantity, amount of lighting systems deployed, team size, etc.)?

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As a small startup company with a dedicated team of 10, supported by an ecosystem of world-class technology and supply chain partners, the most interesting metric is to look at the unique mix of farming technologies and applications we are illuminating with 40+ direct and OEM customers in 8+ countries around the globe, such as: a corporate campus farm in Europe, the largest rooftop aeroponic farm in the USA, the largest vertical farm in South America, industry and university research centers, commercial greenhouses and indoor farms, container farms, residential building community farms, high schools, restaurant farms, plant growth chamber manufacturers, and consumer garden systems.

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Glenn Murphy, Campus Executive Chef (Courtesy LinkedIn and Gather & Gather Ireland)
Source: SpectraGrow

Residential Community Farm (Courtesy Green Food Solutions and Veris Residential)
Source: SpectraGrow

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What are some goals in 2024 and beyond for SpectraGrow?

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The key word for 2024 and beyond is growth – releasing some new and innovative products, filling some new key positions in the company, and closing some new and exciting projects currently in our pipeline.

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